“I thought that this sunflower because of its special attributes would make a great symbol or emblem for Roxbury,” Ekua Holmes told me in June as her “Roxbury Sunflower Project” was getting underway. “Life is a struggle. That sunflower is so resilient that it will survive the struggle.”

Ekua Holmes's "Celebrate the Sun" party. (Greg Cook)
Ekua Holmes’s “Celebrate the Sun” party. (Greg Cook)

Recently, I went to her “Celebrate the Sun” event at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library to see how the project, developed via the Public Art Accelerator program from independent public art curators Now + There, is coming along.

The artist—from the heart of black Boston in the Roxbury neighborhood—has been giving away 10,000 sunflower seeds to be planted all around the neighborhood, at the Grove Hall Public Library at 41 Geneva Ave., at the 95 Thornton Community Garden and Farm, at Freedom House near the intersection of Crawford and Warren streets, at the Nathan Hale School at 51 Cedar Street, at Hawthorne Youth and Community Center at 9 Fulda St. by the Haley House on Highland Park, at people’s homes and gardens.

As summer is coming to close, the flowers are beginning to blossom around the neighborhood.

Previously:
June 12, 2018:
What Happens If You Plant 10,000 Sunflowers At The Heart Of Boston’s Black Community?


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Ekua Holmes (right) during her "Celebrate the Sun" party for her "Roxbury Sunflower Project" at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library, Aug. 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Ekua Holmes (right) during her “Celebrate the Sun” party for her “Roxbury Sunflower Project” at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library, Aug. 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Ekua Holmes's "Roxbury Sunflower Project" at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library, Aug. 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Ekua Holmes’s “Roxbury Sunflower Project” at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library, Aug. 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Ekua Holmes's "Roxbury Sunflower Project" at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library, Aug. 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Ekua Holmes’s “Roxbury Sunflower Project” at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library, Aug. 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Ekua Holmes's "Roxbury Sunflower Project" at Freedom House, Aug. 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Ekua Holmes’s “Roxbury Sunflower Project” at Freedom House, Aug. 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Ekua Holmes's "Roxbury Sunflower Project" at Freedom House, Aug. 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Ekua Holmes’s “Roxbury Sunflower Project” at Freedom House, Aug. 30, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Categories: Art Public Art